Black Puritan, Black Republican

The Life and Thought of Lemuel Haynes, 1753-1833

John Saillant

Born in Connecticut, Lemuel Haynes was first an indentured servant, then a soldier in the Continental Army, and, in 1785, an ordained congregational minister. Haynes's writings constitute the fullest record of a black man's religion, social thought, and opposition to slavery in the late-18th and early-19th century. Drawing on both published and rare unpublished sources, John Saillant here offers the first comprehensive study of Haynes and his thought.

Black Puritan, Black Republican

The Life and Thought of Lemuel Haynes, 1753-1833

John Saillant

Description

Born in Connecticut, Lemuel Haynes was first an indentured servant, then a soldier in the Continental Army, and, in 1785, an ordained congregational minister. Haynes's writings constitute the fullest record of a black man's religion, social thought, and opposition to slavery in the late-18th and early-19th century. Drawing on both published and rare unpublished sources, John Saillant here offers the first comprehensive study of Haynes and his thought.

Black Puritan, Black Republican

The Life and Thought of Lemuel Haynes, 1753-1833

John Saillant

Reviews and Awards

"In Haynes we have a significant but neglected figure whose life and writings link theology, republicanism, and abolitionism in ways that challenge prevailing notions of religion and republican ideology in the revolutionary and early national period. Haynes was a free man of color, minister, and author, steeped in Edwardsean Calvinism, who came of age to the "shot heard round the world" and the Declaration of Independence. He forged these seemingly diverse strands into a black critique of a slaveholding society that professed liberty and inalienable rights. Saillant has done a wonderful job of making Haynes' stance understandable and compelling."--Kenneth Minkema, Executive Editor, The Works of Jonathan Edwards

"Saillant's study of Lemuel Haynes is a well-researched and sensitive treatment of a complex individual and of some critical issues for American and African American social and religious history and for religious and theological studies. I am particularly impressed by Saillant's deft treatment of Haynes's engagement of the Bible as an index of his self-understanding and his complex negotiation of a complexly constructed ideological world. A very fine work. I recommend it with enthusiasm."--Vincent L. Wimbush, Professor of Religion, Claremont Graduate University; Editor, African Americans and the Bible: Sacred Texts and Social Textures

"Comprehensively researched and wonderfully readable, John Saillant's study of Lemuel Haynes offers a unique examination of an African American abolitionist of the American Revolution and the early republic. Known in his adult life as a minuteman and patriot, as well as an effective revivalist, Haynes articulated a vision of an America without slavery, where blacks and whites lived at once under a religious canopy and in a republican polis. A model of interdisciplinary scholarship and an extraordinary contribution to our historical understanding, this book is important for everybody interested in race and the Revolutionary era. And anyone interested in African American religion from its beginnings under slavery to its flourishing in a free society will find this book indispensable."--Orville Vernon Burton, University Distinguished Scholar and Teacher, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign